[I apologize for all the spacing issues in this post.  This software just baffles the hell out of me.] 

I’ve been betting on college football games off and on for about 30 years or so.  Never put too much money on the line – it’s just something I’ve done for fun, and to increase the interest level for each saturday’s cornucopia of gridiron matchups.  

I never did bet much on NFL games, just because I’ve never been much good at it, am a skinflint at heart, and just hate like hell to throw good money after bad.  I’ve had something of a knack for picking college games that I just never developed for the professional game.  It probably has something to do with the fact that I just love the collegiate game with about 2,000 times more intensity than I hold for the pro game.  And it could also have to do with the reality that the oddsmakers have a far better feel for where they set lines on the pro games to mazimize their return than they do on the college games, especially in the first third of the season, when so many college teams are works in progress that are either unexpectedly good or surprisingly bad. Whatever the reason, I’ve hardly ever had a losing weekend betting college games.  

But in all that time, I’ve never had a day like I had yesterday at the sports book in the Flamingo in Las Vegas.  Eleven times I placed bets on various college games, and eleven times I won the bet. It was every bettor’s dream – a perfect day.  If only I’d had the forethought to put down an 11 bet parlay, I could have retired early.

Days begin early in Las Vegas, partially because it resides in the Western time zone, and partially because I had  been up until 3:00 in the morning losing my fat ass at blackjack.  Oh, well, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, including much of my cash.My day yesterday began at 9:30, which was as early as I could make myself get down to the sports book, and which meant that the first thing I did in my day’s betting was miss getting money down on Penn State to cover in its game with Temple, because it kicked off a little after 9:00.  I regarded that 28 point line as one of the real low-hanging fruits of the day – Penn State is one of those teams that is much, much better than anyone had anticipated coming into the year, and the oddsmakers and betting public haven’t quite caught onto that yet.  They will soon.

Another team that is much better than anticipated is Alabama, and the Tide’s game against Arkansas is where my day officially began.  The 9.5 point line set by the bookmakers at the Flamingo seemed to me to be perhaps the most certain bet of the day, with the 46.5 point gametime over/under trailing not far behind.  I put down double bets on both, grabbed an extra spicy bloody mary to hopefully wear some of my hangover away, and settled in to watch as Alabama thoroughly dismantled Bobby Petrino’s dismal Razorbacks, with the two teams damn near covering the over/under before halftime.

The certainty of winning my first two bets of the day led me to scan the big board for any 2nd half bets they might put up on the game, and sure enough, there was a 2.5 point line for ‘Bama to cover in half number two.  I nabbed for another double.  Easy money.

When in Vegas, I always try to segregate my bets into morning, mid-day, and evening betting sequences that I place just before game times and determine bet amounts based on how I’ve been doing.  The mid-day segment had a few sucker bets I had to take advantage of.  For some reason, the Flamingo must have been getting a  bunch of late money in on A&M, because its line on the game went from Miami -4 to -3 about an hour before kickoff.  I doubled on that one as well, and also took the 40.5 point over for that contest, figuring Miami alone was good for that.  Sure enough. 

The third mid-day bet was for Florida to cover 7.5 against Tennessee.  I told one of my buddies Florida would cover that in the first quarter.  Again, sure enough.  Finally, I took a parlay on those same three bets.The afternoon was a lot of fun as the winnings kept piling up. 

By kickoff time for the Texas game, I was a princely 7 for 7, and looking forward to watching my Longhorns kick the snot out of the Rice Owls one more time.

Which brings me to the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

First, the UGLY:

• Another slow start for the defense – boy, Rice’s first two possessions were just brutal to watch.  No contain on any counters or zone reads, no ability by any of our LBs to run down Clement when he left the pocket, no ability by our backfield and LBs to execute anything resembling a competent zone defense.  Things got better as the game went along, but these continued clueless beginnings will put us in a real hole real fast against a real team.

• Bad replay officiating – the touchback call on Quan’s fumble was a bad call.  Period.  On a fumble, the ball is out of bounds where it crosses the plane of the sideline, not where it first touches some inanimate object, like the goalline pylon that Cosby’s fumble hit.  The ball CLEARLY crossed the plane of the sideline about a foot before it hit the pylon.  This is utterly obvious since the ball hit the side of the pylon that was facing downfied squarely.  The game officials called it correctly, and the replay guy screwed it up.  Brilliant.

• The Arkansas Razorbacks – these guys are just not good at anything.  You folks who are still somehow critics of Colt McCoy really need to pay attention to just how awful Casey Dick is – and any number of QBs for other major college teams are – and then thank your lucky stars we have Colt available to us.  If we somehow manage to lose to this Arkansas team, the program’s reputation may never recover.  Put it this way:  If LSU had Colt McCoy playing QB for them, they would be the best team in the country.

 Next, the BAD:

• Still starting the wrong guys.  Why was Norton not on the field to begin the game?  Bobino is just lost in pass coverage.  So is Sergio, although he was better last night than he has been.  I don’t believe Blake Gideon started either, and he has been our best safety thus far.  This first quarter keystone cops act by the back 7 on defense cannot continue.

• Emily Jones’s sideline reports.  I’m sorry, this chick drives me nuts.  Why is she there?  Why are any sideline reporters there, for that matter?  She just completely detracts from the game with these interminable, meaningless, irrelevant sidetracks.  She’s better looking than Jack Arute, though, so she’s got that going for her.

• The local Las Vegas ABC newscast – it was playing for awhile on one of the big tubes in the sports book, and more than half of it was taken up with the damn weather report.  My God, folks, it’s Las Vegas!  It’s hot and freaking sunny!  Why does this take more than 30 seconds to communicate??

• Notre Dame – didn’t Lou Holtz predict the Irish would win 10 games this year?  The rest of their schedule is made up of a collection of ragnots, so they might actually get to 7 or 8, but boy, this is a really bad football team.

• Fozzy Whitaker’s continued knee issues – this does not bode well at all for the rest of the year.  We managed to accumulate 259 yards on the ground last night against a piss poor defense, but Colt McCoy was our only effective runner for the first third of the game, and 155 of the yards were gained by Colt and Chiles.  It was good to see Cody Johnson getting some meaningful snaps, but overall, our running game is just extremely average.  You compare what we put on the field at tailback to, say, Alabama, and it is night and day.  Alabama played 4 tailbacks yesterday who looked like more effective runners than anything we have available to us.

• Blaine Irby’s injury – devastating at that position.  Just devastating.

Finally, the GOOD:

• I found this quote from Mack’s early-week presser this morning:  “There wasn’t as much emphasis [on blocking punts] last year. Nobody is as good as Duane [Akina] and he was taken away from it, which was a mistake on my part. He’s the best in the country, that’s why we’ve got more blocked kicks than anyone else. The kids believe in him, they believe in his system and his schemes. But it’s not about schemes, it’s about the attitude that you approach the schemes with. That’s why we’ve gone back to blocking kicks.”  I’ve been wondering why in the hell we quit even attempting to block punts and kicks last year, after leading the nation in this category for the better part of a decade, and now I know.  Finally.  This is good.
  

• Wide receivers – Jordan Shipley – big, big game for Ship.  Lots and lots of YAC, and wide open most of the night.  Another big one for Cosby as well.  With Irby gone, the pressure on this unit to perform will ramp up.
  

• Sergio Kindle is beginning to get his feet under him and make plays.  He showed really nice recognition in space while busting up a tunnel screen, and repeatedly pressured the QB.  Muckelroy continues to be the best LB on the team.  Bobino, despite playing most of the game, was credited with a single assisted tackle.  Is Norton in the coaches’ doghouse, or what?
  

• Chykie Brown made a series of big plays, and looks to really be growing up.  Ryan Palmer had a very nice night.  That’s about as far as I’m willing to go with the defensive backfield this week.
  

• Blocked passes – By my count, our DLs blocked four balls last night.  Orakpo and Houston also had four tfls between them, and Houston continues to show the ability to range all over the damn field to make plays.  I can’t remember our ever having a DT who was more mobile than this guy.
  

• Colt freaking McCoy is a man.  That first TD run, when he just pounded a safety back into the endzone, was just outstanding.  His stat line for the game was extraordinary, even if it did come against Rice.  I got to watch all or parts of more than a dozen games involving Top 25 teams yesterday, and Colt was the most impressive QB I saw.  We were all hoping he would get back to his Freshman year form this season, and he hasn’t done that.  He is light years better than he was as a fish.  He’s bigger, he’s stronger, he’s faster and he’s smarter.  We are damn lucky to have him at Texas.
  

• Offensive Player of the Game – Colt, although Shipley certainly deserves honorable mention here.
  

• Defensive Player of the Game – Chykie Brown, just because I wanted to recognize a DB.
  

• Special Teams Player of the Game - Quan Cosby, who had a couple of very nice KO returns, and a hell of a punt return that was unfortunately called back by a meaningless block in the back.

Back to the betting.  So, by 4 o’clock Vegas time, I’m 7 for 7, and scoping out the low-hanging fruit for the evening shift of games.  Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be a whole lot of such games.  Or any, for that matter.

The closest I could come to what I considered a semi-lock was Georgia to cover 7 against Arizona State.  I have little confidence in Georgia, which I consider to be a perennially overrated program, but given that they were playing a Pac 10 school not named USC, even on the road, I figured they’d just physically dominate them.  So I doubled up on that game.  I also doubled up on Texas to cover 29, even though it would just take a couple of turnovers to prevent the ‘Horns from covering.  Still, it seemed a fairly safe bet.

The third game I picked out of the pack was LSU to cover 2 at Auburn.  This was the toughest bet of the day, in my opinion, mainly due to the quality of Auburn’s defense.  I wasn’t worried about Auburn doing much scoring, just whether or not LSU could put up enough points at Auburn to win.  Finally, I bet a parlay on those same three bets.

Things looked pretty tenuous early, with Texas getting screwed over on the bad touchback call, and LSU’s starting QB throwing a horrible pick for an easy Auburn TD to give War Eagle a 14-3 edge at halftime.  Georgia also struggled more with ASU than I’d anticipated, but steadily built up a lead.

We had tickets to see Cher, and by the time we had to trudge into the theatre at Caesar’s, Texas had locked up a cover, Georgia was up by 14 over ASU, and LSU had just gone on top of Auburn for the first time.  Of course, I had to keep downloading the scores on my Blackberry, and Cher was right in the middle of Gypsies, Tramps and Theives when the LSU score went final.  I thought that was appropriate for the moment.

So there it was:  my first ever perfect day betting college football.  It’ll probably never happen again, but it sure felt good doing it once.

Cher was tremendous, by the way, and I’ve never been a fan.  She is without question the sexiest Social Security recipient on the face of the earth.

Hook ‘em!!!